Things to do in Bournemouth when the police have got you where they want you

Had a bit of a farcical time at the Conservative conference in Bournemouth. For one thing, the hotel I'd been booked into was so far from the conference zone that I needed a supply of Kendal mint cake and some hiking boots just to make it to a hotel near the zone to see the Policy Exchange fringe meeting with George Osborne on the Sunday night - that's the meeting where he made the infamous "autistic" remark about Gordon Brown. Osborne was playing it very safe, smooth and centrist at that event - totally dismissive of tax cuts and indeed responding to almost all suggestions for tax reform from the audience by saying "it's an interesting idea but we're still looking at it and we can't make any decisions yet." This was his response time after time: on transferable tax allowances, bringing back mortgage tax relief, council tax reform, and so on. The only concrete proposal he voiced all night was a commitment to abolish regional assemblies.

And if Osborne was smooth, David Cameron's opening speech a couple of hours earlier was almost frictionless. I expected him to glide off the podium at any moment. There were some amicable but safe stand-up comedy lines and delegates laughed in the right places; even at his worst joke, which was that Tony Blair had sent him a letter saying, "Dear Pot, Yours sincerely, Kettle." Uh? But seriously, Cameron was brilliant. Just in terms of creating a mood, making the party feel good even though he has sorted out maybe five percent of his policy platform for the next election, at a generous estimate. The guy made even Tony Blair look stilted in terms of his delivery (although he still has a little way to go to be as smooth as Bill Clinton next week. But Bill is a man of experience...)

I think there is actually more to the Cameron strategy than most people on the Left (or indeed the Right) have picked up on. In speeches, Dave is now close to being a politics-free zone. People have accused him of apeing Tony Blair and New Labour but the approach is subtly different. In 1994, Blair deliberately took up positions that were very close to the Tories on a few key areas where Labour had experienced persistent electoral damage - defence, taxation, and (initially) public spending) to neutralise Tory attacks. Blair claimed to be moving 'beyond left and right' but in fact he was just moving between left and right - into the dead centre (although of course he eventually overshot and just ended up on the Right anyway.) What Cameron is trying to do is what Blair claimed he was doing, but Cameron is much more close to actually doing it - moving the Conservative party away from some key elements of political debate altogether, and by doing that he hopes he will be able to attract people who didn't vote in previous elections. As there are rather a lot of these (almost 40% of eligible voters at the last election) the plan may work - but will any of these people be bothered? And are they even in the hallowed "centre ground" that Cameron and Osborne keep talking about?

Also, Cameron has enough suss to hold on to a few hard-right positions as long as they're popular, and to shore up the key vote. Hence MPs are openly allowed to advocate leaving the EU and he has pulled the Tory MEPs out of the centre-right European People's Party bloc in Strasbourg. No doubt we will see a commitment to abolish inheritance tax closer to the next election too. All in all it's a new kind of opportunist twaddle which, when you look at it closely, has about as much coherence as the lyrics Jon Anderson used to write for Yes. But it stands a significant chance at the next election, if: (a) they can get some of the 'non-political' people to vote Conservative, (b) they can grab some of the "I voted for Tony Blair because he was a way to carry on voting Conservative without voting for Major/Hague/Duncan Smith" vote, (c)
the core Tory vote doesn't bugger off to the UK Independence Party/BNP/etc. In the meantime, they have done out the Bournemouth conference centre very nicely, and the new logo looks very good.

Oh yes - I meant to tell you what else happened to me in Bournemouth. Well I couldn't get into the Monday morning fringe event I was meant to be going to, because it was in the secure conference zone and Dorset police hadn't processed my fringe pass in time! Still, I wasn't alone - Bournemouth Pavilion was filling up with disgruntled activists. Apparently even some pretty big names couldn't get in (Zac Goldsmith was rumoured to be one of the excluded, although he certainly wasn't there when I was.) So for all I know the pass is still waiting for me in the late accreditation office, 2 days after I needed it. Not sure whose fault this is - the Tories or the Dorset police - nor do I care, much. But to look on the bright side of this rather demeaning experience, at least it gave me some training in what to expect when ID cards are introduced in this country...